


Change

by gala_apples



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Internalized Transphobia, Other, Podfic Available, Surprises, Trans Female Character, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 19:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikey's the person that always rides the bus, never gets the Ferrari. Metaphorically speaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> Podfic by sylvaine is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/392603

Mikey’s pretty used to his band being luckier than him. His thing with Pete went everywhere, but no one ever commented on Gerard’s thing with Gabe. Ray might get main character fanfiction, but they never make him have sex with his brother. Bob self medicated at the Paramour too, and he didn’t go batshit. Frank’s first band was in junior high and they got to play places, the first place Mikey auditioned was with Pencey and he got shut down hard.

Mikey’s got good coping mechanisms for not letting the luck of others get to him. He used to take pills that made him happy, now he’s gotta work a bit harder. But he does, and he doesn’t bitch when something strikes him as particularly unfair, because he loves his band. Gerard might be his _brother_ but they’re his brothers.

Every now and then though, something comes along and just spits directly in someone’s face. It’s like... It’s like if your friend called you and told you he’d just won the lottery, while you were busy checking all your pockets so you could gather enough change for a bus fare. _Awesome, congratulations, yay you, fucking fuck off now!_.

To extend the metaphor, it’s like being called while you’re desperately counting off nickels and after relaying the news, they start worrying about if it’s taxable income, or mention that trying to decide what charities to give to will be difficult. _Yeah, your problems are hard, go die in a fucking fire_.

My Chem doesn’t really call band meetings. On tour they’re constantly in each other’s faces. Off tour they’re not much more solitary. But once in a while they happen. Mikey and Alicia are over at Gerard’s, playing with Bandit, when Frank sends a mass text demanding one. Ray comes over as quickly as he can. After he’s parked Alicia and Lindsey go play monsters with Bandit and they follow Gerard to his office where he logs into Skype.

For a minute all they get is Frank’s face. He looks normal, apart from stressed out. His face is a little rounder, like maybe he had to go back on the drugs he was on around Watchmen. Mikey doubts that’s true though. If he did, he would have mentioned something. Unless that’s what this is about. Some of the so called fans were fucking asshats last time, and they’re going to be in Australia soon. Maybe Frank doesn’t want to be a fat Killjoy.

And then he speaks. Mikey hears the voice more than his words, at first. His voice is very off. Not thick with a cold, or raspy with a lung infection. It’s just high. Not high enough that he’s doing falsetto. Legitimately high, like he’s pre-puberty.

The words don’t kick in until a second later, as Gerard and Ray stare. “So. Uh. I’m a girl now? Woman, I guess? I didn’t get younger. Just vaginaier.”

For a minute Mikey thinks it’s a joke. The most unfunny joke that Frank’s ever said, but a joke none the less. The guys obviously think so too -or at least Ray, Gerard’s pretty much stunned frozen- because Ray snorts. He opens his mouth, probably to ask where Frank got the sudden vocal training to pull off a female impression and Frank shakes his head to the minute movement. He stands up and moves a bit away from the webcam. There are curves, but anyone could simulate that. Mikey should know. Then he takes off his t-shirt. He definitely has breasts. He’s not wearing a bra, but he doesn’t really need to. They’re B-cups, and they’re beautiful.

“So yeah. Woman. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Mikey blinks, transfixed by the way Frank is flaunting himself like he’s still a guy that can get away with only wearing shorts in the summer, or boxers indoors. He can’t think of a word _less_ applicable than sucks.

“Wow. How did Jamia take it? How did it _happen_?” Ray questions. Gerard is still frozen.

“She’s mostly trying to figure out the second bit. I’m more pragmatic, I guess. Like, after I did the whole ‘what the fuck’ thing, I made sure I could still play. My fingernails were long, so I had to cut that shit off. But I’m good. If it doesn’t go away, we’re still good for Australia.”

Fuckin’-. Christ, Frank wants it to go away. Of course he does.

“It has to go away! You can’t just be stuck in the wrong body!”

Mikey carefully doesn’t look at Gerard after he speaks. He really doesn’t want to burst into tears.

Jamia explodes into the room as Frank sits back down in his leather computer chair. He’s right about one thing, she’s certainly more frantic about it than Frank is. “Didn’t we use a different kind of condom last night?”

“Yes, because Trojan makes a ‘let’s turn the wearer into a girl’ brand.” 

“Well I don’t know! I’m not the one that insists on wearing them!”

“Lily and Cherry don’t need a brother right now!”

Jamia turns and stomps out, slamming the door behind her. Mikey can’t help but wonder if that’s a common argument. He worries the idea with his thoughts. Better to think about that than what’s going on.

“I need all the coffee in the world to deal with this,” Gerard sighs. Mikey hiccups a sob that he just barely manages to turn into a short coughing fit. Gerard, fucking _Gerard_ needs coffee to relieve his stress. He leaves, muttering something about getting them mugs too, like Ray doesn’t have a Starbucks cardboard cup beside him on the bookshelf.

It’s just him and Ray. Pretty soon he’s going to have to say something. Something rational, something coherent. Mikey’s not sure that he has that in him. Maybe if it was 2004 and he was still on a handful of not prescribed prescriptions. Not now.

Frank shrugs after he pulls his shirt back on, a sort of non-verbal ‘how’s that sports team’ or ‘the weather is something, isn’t it’. Mikey would try for a smile, but that would trigger a panic attack, he knows it. Ray decides to break the stretching silence. “In movies this would be about you learning your lesson because you’re misogynistic. Like that Mel Gibson movie. But you haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

It races through him. Like adding a speck of dust to a supercooled liquid, the rage and pain, the seething jealousy coalesces in an instant. He leaps to his feet so hard that the chair topples over. Ray probably looks at him, Frank probably says something, but he doesn’t pay attention. He just walks out. Out and out and out until he’s halfway down the block but he can never walk out of his skin, so it’s never really enough, is it?

The car keys are on the melted ponybead bowl on the kitchen counter but that’s fine. Mikey doesn’t want to go home, or strand Alicia. His phone is probably in the office, but he doesn’t want to talk to anyone either. Not that he has a large range of people to talk to. Only two people know. 

Alicia knows. You can’t not tell someone you’re about to marry that you’d really rather they not touch your dick, that it would be super cool if they could just pretend he doesn’t have one. She got it. Understood what he meant without him having to drag out an explanation. It made it easier to tell her more, later. And it works. They still have sex. They just don’t touch the things they shouldn’t, much like how a normal couple wouldn’t fondle each others open wounds or eye sockets.

And Pete knows. It kind of made sense, at the time. Pete was gay above the waist, and Mikey was straight, just put together incorrectly.

Except, of course, turns out he is bi. Alicia is a beautiful woman. One of the first Mikey met that he wasn’t jealous of. Maybe a little bit jealous. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to turn that off. But with Alicia, it’s different. It’s like they share her body. He can touch her with his eyes closed and pretend he’s touching himself, and she never tries to break that illusion. If they lived in a sci-fi world and he could get a time share on it, she would let him.

No one else knows. He doesn’t plan on ever saying anything. The band is too important for shit like transitioning. Warner barely tolerates fags, they wouldn’t want a man-woman. He can’t do that to Gerard and Frank and Ray. He won’t.

Frank turning into a woman by the hand of god though, that’s just not fair. Not that fair matters. Just like the bus rider, Mikey’s going to have to swallow his thoughts. Swallow and swallow until he’s choking in pain, but with his throat so thoroughly clogged that nothing comes out. Life’s winners want to have problems too, who is he to deny them?


End file.
